Former National Development Minister S Dhanabalan left the Cabinet in September 1992. His reason for quitting, as he put it some 12 years later, was one of conviction.
'My philosophy is one where I need to have complete conviction about some key policies and if I have differences, it doesn't mean that I'm against the group. I still want to make sure the group succeeds, but I have to try and live with myself if I have some disagreements on some things,' he said.
He had different views on some government policies and although 'they were not so sharp that I wanted to leave immediately... I could see for myself it could pose problems in the future for the group and me'.
Then-Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong did not wish to go into the specifics, but in his interviews for this book, he revealed for the first time that Mr Dhanabalan was not comfortable with the way the PAP government had dealt with the Marxist group in 1987.
'At that time, given the information, he was not fully comfortable with the action which we took... His make-up is that of a very strong Christian so he felt uncomfortable and thought there could be more of such episodes in future. So he thought since he was uncomfortable, he'd better leave the Cabinet. I respected him for his view,' Mr Goh said.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
'I was a block of wood So? It was the truth'
'I was a block of wood So? It was the truth'
In 1988, then PM Lee Kuan Yew said that his first choice as successor was Tony Tan not Goh Chok Tong. Later, he described Goh as 'wooden' and that he might have to see a psychiatrist about it. Singaporeans were stunned. So were Goh and his associates. Why did Lee make such a blunt public assessment? How did Goh feel about it?
Lee Kuan Yew might have accepted the second-generation leaders' choice of Goh Chok Tong as their leader in 1984 but he unsettled both them and the public four years later, at the National Day rally in August, when he made public his 1980 assessment of the five key men.
His blunt statement on how he thought Goh tried to please too many people when he should not and that his first choice as successor was Tony Tan, although he had known by 1984 that the latter was not interested in the job, shook the people.
Goh, who was 'puzzled and stunned' by the speech, remembered the awkwardness at the reception after the event. 'How would the people come and greet me? It was very awkward. They looked at me...they didn't know whether to smile or to sympathise with me,' he said.
His good friend Ahmad Mattar was furious, he said. He told Ahmad in jest: 'If the prime minister does this to me again next year, I'll walk out.'
'I'll walk out with you,' Ahmad said to him.
Goh's wife, equally puzzled, asked: 'Why did he say that?'
Lee caused yet another stir among the people a few days later - at a session with students from the National University of Singapore and the Nanyang Technological Institute, now Nanyang Technological University - when he described Goh as 'wooden' and said that he might have to see a psychiatrist about it.
In pointing out how Goh could not convey through television and mass meetings what he could in individual face-to-face or small group discussions, he said: 'I have suggested to him (to seek) perhaps a bit of psychological adjustment, maybe (see) a psychiatrist...something holds him back. He is...before a mass audience...he gets wooden - which he is not. When you speak to him one-to-one, he has strong feelings. Get him on television, it's difficult (to see that). He has improved, I will say, about 20 per cent. He needs to improve by more than 100 per cent.'
Someone differently constituted from Goh could have been thrown on the mat by so harsh a public judgement and not get up after the count of 10 but not Goh. Looking back, he said simply: 'It did not hurt...I knew Mr Lee well. He's not a man to slam you for nothing. He was never personal. So I did not feel he wanted to insult me...He had his purpose in saying what he said. I think he was disappointed with me for my inability to mobilise the ground. So he wanted to get me to do something about it.'
He added: 'I knew myself. I was a block of wood. So? It was the truth. But I was prepared to take on the job. If I could not do the job, then so be it. That was my strength. I was not chasing after the job. If I were, if my ambition was to be prime minister, then I'd be furious that my chances had diminished.'
This did not prevent him from speculating that Lee could still have wanted Tan to be the successor although Tan and his peers had plumped for him. Lee could have made his less than favourable public assessment of Goh to see if the PAP cadres and MPs would reject him as a result.
If they did, then Tan, however reluctant he was, would have to take his place. Tan was well liked by the people, Goh said, but he believed he was more popular among the cadres than Tan since he had worked closely with them for many years.
As it turned out, it was Tony Tan and Lee Hsien Loong who led the cadres and the people to rally round Goh. At a PAP rally at the Singapore Conference Hall on Aug 21, Lee Hsien Loong made it clear that all the cabinet ministers and all the members of the party's central executive committee (CEC), except Lee Kuan Yew, worked for Goh Chok Tong.
'We acknowledged him as our leader and in factwe - that means the younger ministers - discussed it among ourselves and have decided that he'll be the next prime minister,' he said to loud applause from the party cadres.
'He brought many of us into politics, including me. If comrade Goh had not invited me to stand, I would not be in politics because I cannot volunteer,' he added.
At a community event in Sembawang on the same day, Tony Tan told reporters that the second-generation leaders had met after the 1984 general election and decided unanimously that Goh should lead them and take over from Lee eventually. 'I see no reason at all why that decision should be changed, and the task for all of us is to support Goh Chok Tong in his very difficult job,' he stressed.
Goh himself did not remain silent. At a National Day dinner at his Marine Parade ward a week after Lee's rally speech, he said to his constituents: 'I told the prime minister many times...I will not change my style. It is part of my temperament and personality, and I cannot change my personality or my temperament.
'But habits, if they are not so good habits and if they can be improved upon, certainly, I should change those habits. But style is part of my temperament. It cannot be changed.'
On Lee's point about his desire to please people, he said: 'I would not use the word 'please' to describe my attitude. I would use the word 'accommodate'. In other words, I listen, I talk, I try to persuade and try to bring as many people on board as possible...
'I regard this style of mine as a strength, not a weakness. Karate chops have to be executed when necessary. But I like to use them only sparingly.'
At the National Day rally speech, Lee had said that getting people to perform was not a matter of smiling and kissing babies and patting people on the back all the time. 'There are times when a very good, firm karate chop is necessary. And deliver it cleanly. Don't have two chops where one would do.'
Ong Keng Yong - who was Goh's press secretary from 1998 to 2002 when he left for Jakarta to head the Asean Secretariat, the central administrative organ for the group of Southeast Asian countries - observed that Goh would not reject any suggestion or idea outright, whether in the Cabinet, in community work or interacting with his staff.
'He would listen to the pros and cons, work out a balance and match it with his own opinion. In this disarming way, he would bring people around to a particular idea,' Ong said.
'He might be patient but no issue was left to stew for too long. If something had to be left on the burner for a slow boil, it would have been a deliberate decision...His style was (that) he would get into the deep end of the swimming pool with you and knock around a particular idea. Once you got out of the pool, you actually wanted to deliver results as quickly as possible. Because he had indulged you, he had listened to you, given you some ideas, polished some rough edges and then asked for action to be taken. He didn't need to give you a deadline. You knew you had failed him if he had to remind you of the task.'
Integrity and dedication
When Lee spoke to the students, he did elaborate on Goh's qualities.
He had no doubts about the latter's integrity and dedication, he said. Goh had shown that he could not be bought when he was head of the Neptune Orient Lines. He had to do business with very wealthy people, like shipping magnate Y.K. Pao, but he was not seduced by their way of life.
Since 1980, Goh had found 30 of the 61 candidates that PAP fielded in 1981 and 1984, and would field in the 1988 election. Most importantly, he was not afraid to pick able men, men who could be his contenders. Lee cited, in particular, his son Lee Hsien Loong and the Cambridge-trained biochemist Yeo Ning Hong.
Goh had first-class interpersonal skills but he was no softie. He was not afraid to make tough decisions and push them through in parliament after he had worked the ground, selling them to the people. In the case of the CPF cut and wage restraint during the 1985 recession, for instance, he and his peers spent three months talking to all the unions.
'They pulled it off. The workers accepted not only a 15 percentage point cut in the employers' contribution but also two years of wage restraint, which is a major triumph, not attempted anywhere else in the world,' Lee told the students.
But reading the newspaper reports on the event the following day, most people were drawn only to the sensational bit - that Goh was wooden and needed to see a psychiatrist.
For the many Singaporeans who wondered what Lee was up to in assessing his successor Goh in so public and blunt a fashion, he cleared the air a month later, at the PAP's lunchtime rally at Fullerton Square for the 1988 general election. He told the crowd that his recent candid assessment of Goh was 'not a bad gambit'.
Since he 'put up that balloon', Goh had become more natural on television and in front of mass audiences, he said. It was his duty to tell Singaporeans his honest assessment of Goh. At the same time, he wanted to decide, from the way Goh reacted, whether he could be his own man.
'I said: 'Speak up! Be yourself. If you are angry, say so!' The result? He's no longer inhibited. He can talk about his inability to react naturally with crowds and in the process, he has come through.'
He urged the people to give Goh and his team 'a ringing endorsement'.
In his interviews for this book, Lee elaborated on the reasons he made public his assessment of Goh. He said: 'I knew it would cause some discomfort. But this was a very critical question...it was choosing the right man for the job. I laid down my cards. They (the second-generation leaders) chose Goh Chok Tong. Well, he had got to make the effort.
'And because I said all those things, he felt uncomfortable. But I said to him: 'Look, you may not be a natural speaker but you've got to start learning, because you can't be a leader when you can't communicate.'
'I told him when I was doing my campaigning in 1960 and 1961, every lunchtime I was eating and learning Hokkien from scratch. And by the end of the campaign, I was able to make some speeches in Hokkien. So he was willing to do it. He knew he had to make the effort. And he made the effort. As the years progressed, he improved.'
The majority of the ethnic Chinese population in Singapore are descendants of immigrants who had come from the southern Chinese province of Fujian, where Hokkien is the principal dialect. In the 1960s, most of the people were uneducated, hence Lee's need to master Hokkien.
After Goh Keng Swee introduced national service in 1967, he found he had to form separate Hokkien-speaking platoons because many of the 18-year-olds could not understand the English and Malay instructions of their officers. It would take another two decades before the need for such platoons was made redundant, thanks to universal education.
'PUZZLED AND STUNNED'
Goh, who was 'puzzled and stunned' by the speech, remembered the awkwardness at the reception after the event. 'How would the people come and greet me? It was very awkward. They looked at me...they didn't know whether to smile or to sympathise with me,' he said.
'NOT A BAD GAMBIT'
For the many Singaporeans who wondered what Lee was up to in assessing his successor Goh in so public and blunt a fashion, he cleared the air a month later, at the PAP's lunchtime rally at Fullerton Square for the 1988 general election. He told the crowd that his recent candid assessment of Goh was 'not a bad gambit'.
In 1988, then PM Lee Kuan Yew said that his first choice as successor was Tony Tan not Goh Chok Tong. Later, he described Goh as 'wooden' and that he might have to see a psychiatrist about it. Singaporeans were stunned. So were Goh and his associates. Why did Lee make such a blunt public assessment? How did Goh feel about it?
Lee Kuan Yew might have accepted the second-generation leaders' choice of Goh Chok Tong as their leader in 1984 but he unsettled both them and the public four years later, at the National Day rally in August, when he made public his 1980 assessment of the five key men.
His blunt statement on how he thought Goh tried to please too many people when he should not and that his first choice as successor was Tony Tan, although he had known by 1984 that the latter was not interested in the job, shook the people.
Goh, who was 'puzzled and stunned' by the speech, remembered the awkwardness at the reception after the event. 'How would the people come and greet me? It was very awkward. They looked at me...they didn't know whether to smile or to sympathise with me,' he said.
His good friend Ahmad Mattar was furious, he said. He told Ahmad in jest: 'If the prime minister does this to me again next year, I'll walk out.'
'I'll walk out with you,' Ahmad said to him.
Goh's wife, equally puzzled, asked: 'Why did he say that?'
Lee caused yet another stir among the people a few days later - at a session with students from the National University of Singapore and the Nanyang Technological Institute, now Nanyang Technological University - when he described Goh as 'wooden' and said that he might have to see a psychiatrist about it.
In pointing out how Goh could not convey through television and mass meetings what he could in individual face-to-face or small group discussions, he said: 'I have suggested to him (to seek) perhaps a bit of psychological adjustment, maybe (see) a psychiatrist...something holds him back. He is...before a mass audience...he gets wooden - which he is not. When you speak to him one-to-one, he has strong feelings. Get him on television, it's difficult (to see that). He has improved, I will say, about 20 per cent. He needs to improve by more than 100 per cent.'
Someone differently constituted from Goh could have been thrown on the mat by so harsh a public judgement and not get up after the count of 10 but not Goh. Looking back, he said simply: 'It did not hurt...I knew Mr Lee well. He's not a man to slam you for nothing. He was never personal. So I did not feel he wanted to insult me...He had his purpose in saying what he said. I think he was disappointed with me for my inability to mobilise the ground. So he wanted to get me to do something about it.'
He added: 'I knew myself. I was a block of wood. So? It was the truth. But I was prepared to take on the job. If I could not do the job, then so be it. That was my strength. I was not chasing after the job. If I were, if my ambition was to be prime minister, then I'd be furious that my chances had diminished.'
This did not prevent him from speculating that Lee could still have wanted Tan to be the successor although Tan and his peers had plumped for him. Lee could have made his less than favourable public assessment of Goh to see if the PAP cadres and MPs would reject him as a result.
If they did, then Tan, however reluctant he was, would have to take his place. Tan was well liked by the people, Goh said, but he believed he was more popular among the cadres than Tan since he had worked closely with them for many years.
As it turned out, it was Tony Tan and Lee Hsien Loong who led the cadres and the people to rally round Goh. At a PAP rally at the Singapore Conference Hall on Aug 21, Lee Hsien Loong made it clear that all the cabinet ministers and all the members of the party's central executive committee (CEC), except Lee Kuan Yew, worked for Goh Chok Tong.
'We acknowledged him as our leader and in factwe - that means the younger ministers - discussed it among ourselves and have decided that he'll be the next prime minister,' he said to loud applause from the party cadres.
'He brought many of us into politics, including me. If comrade Goh had not invited me to stand, I would not be in politics because I cannot volunteer,' he added.
At a community event in Sembawang on the same day, Tony Tan told reporters that the second-generation leaders had met after the 1984 general election and decided unanimously that Goh should lead them and take over from Lee eventually. 'I see no reason at all why that decision should be changed, and the task for all of us is to support Goh Chok Tong in his very difficult job,' he stressed.
Goh himself did not remain silent. At a National Day dinner at his Marine Parade ward a week after Lee's rally speech, he said to his constituents: 'I told the prime minister many times...I will not change my style. It is part of my temperament and personality, and I cannot change my personality or my temperament.
'But habits, if they are not so good habits and if they can be improved upon, certainly, I should change those habits. But style is part of my temperament. It cannot be changed.'
On Lee's point about his desire to please people, he said: 'I would not use the word 'please' to describe my attitude. I would use the word 'accommodate'. In other words, I listen, I talk, I try to persuade and try to bring as many people on board as possible...
'I regard this style of mine as a strength, not a weakness. Karate chops have to be executed when necessary. But I like to use them only sparingly.'
At the National Day rally speech, Lee had said that getting people to perform was not a matter of smiling and kissing babies and patting people on the back all the time. 'There are times when a very good, firm karate chop is necessary. And deliver it cleanly. Don't have two chops where one would do.'
Ong Keng Yong - who was Goh's press secretary from 1998 to 2002 when he left for Jakarta to head the Asean Secretariat, the central administrative organ for the group of Southeast Asian countries - observed that Goh would not reject any suggestion or idea outright, whether in the Cabinet, in community work or interacting with his staff.
'He would listen to the pros and cons, work out a balance and match it with his own opinion. In this disarming way, he would bring people around to a particular idea,' Ong said.
'He might be patient but no issue was left to stew for too long. If something had to be left on the burner for a slow boil, it would have been a deliberate decision...His style was (that) he would get into the deep end of the swimming pool with you and knock around a particular idea. Once you got out of the pool, you actually wanted to deliver results as quickly as possible. Because he had indulged you, he had listened to you, given you some ideas, polished some rough edges and then asked for action to be taken. He didn't need to give you a deadline. You knew you had failed him if he had to remind you of the task.'
Integrity and dedication
When Lee spoke to the students, he did elaborate on Goh's qualities.
He had no doubts about the latter's integrity and dedication, he said. Goh had shown that he could not be bought when he was head of the Neptune Orient Lines. He had to do business with very wealthy people, like shipping magnate Y.K. Pao, but he was not seduced by their way of life.
Since 1980, Goh had found 30 of the 61 candidates that PAP fielded in 1981 and 1984, and would field in the 1988 election. Most importantly, he was not afraid to pick able men, men who could be his contenders. Lee cited, in particular, his son Lee Hsien Loong and the Cambridge-trained biochemist Yeo Ning Hong.
Goh had first-class interpersonal skills but he was no softie. He was not afraid to make tough decisions and push them through in parliament after he had worked the ground, selling them to the people. In the case of the CPF cut and wage restraint during the 1985 recession, for instance, he and his peers spent three months talking to all the unions.
'They pulled it off. The workers accepted not only a 15 percentage point cut in the employers' contribution but also two years of wage restraint, which is a major triumph, not attempted anywhere else in the world,' Lee told the students.
But reading the newspaper reports on the event the following day, most people were drawn only to the sensational bit - that Goh was wooden and needed to see a psychiatrist.
For the many Singaporeans who wondered what Lee was up to in assessing his successor Goh in so public and blunt a fashion, he cleared the air a month later, at the PAP's lunchtime rally at Fullerton Square for the 1988 general election. He told the crowd that his recent candid assessment of Goh was 'not a bad gambit'.
Since he 'put up that balloon', Goh had become more natural on television and in front of mass audiences, he said. It was his duty to tell Singaporeans his honest assessment of Goh. At the same time, he wanted to decide, from the way Goh reacted, whether he could be his own man.
'I said: 'Speak up! Be yourself. If you are angry, say so!' The result? He's no longer inhibited. He can talk about his inability to react naturally with crowds and in the process, he has come through.'
He urged the people to give Goh and his team 'a ringing endorsement'.
In his interviews for this book, Lee elaborated on the reasons he made public his assessment of Goh. He said: 'I knew it would cause some discomfort. But this was a very critical question...it was choosing the right man for the job. I laid down my cards. They (the second-generation leaders) chose Goh Chok Tong. Well, he had got to make the effort.
'And because I said all those things, he felt uncomfortable. But I said to him: 'Look, you may not be a natural speaker but you've got to start learning, because you can't be a leader when you can't communicate.'
'I told him when I was doing my campaigning in 1960 and 1961, every lunchtime I was eating and learning Hokkien from scratch. And by the end of the campaign, I was able to make some speeches in Hokkien. So he was willing to do it. He knew he had to make the effort. And he made the effort. As the years progressed, he improved.'
The majority of the ethnic Chinese population in Singapore are descendants of immigrants who had come from the southern Chinese province of Fujian, where Hokkien is the principal dialect. In the 1960s, most of the people were uneducated, hence Lee's need to master Hokkien.
After Goh Keng Swee introduced national service in 1967, he found he had to form separate Hokkien-speaking platoons because many of the 18-year-olds could not understand the English and Malay instructions of their officers. It would take another two decades before the need for such platoons was made redundant, thanks to universal education.
'PUZZLED AND STUNNED'
Goh, who was 'puzzled and stunned' by the speech, remembered the awkwardness at the reception after the event. 'How would the people come and greet me? It was very awkward. They looked at me...they didn't know whether to smile or to sympathise with me,' he said.
'NOT A BAD GAMBIT'
For the many Singaporeans who wondered what Lee was up to in assessing his successor Goh in so public and blunt a fashion, he cleared the air a month later, at the PAP's lunchtime rally at Fullerton Square for the 1988 general election. He told the crowd that his recent candid assessment of Goh was 'not a bad gambit'.
Mobocracy
'I would much rather Harry got unseated and stayed out of politics'
While gangsters might be giving PAP cause for concern in Farrer Park in the 1955 election, the sight of Chinese students campaigning aggressively for Devan Nair was raising more than eyebrows.
In her letters to Goh Keng Swee in London, Mrs Lee expressed her reservations about the 'kids' and 'brats'. She complained about how they came to see Lee at all hours for advice, demanding for one statement or another to be issued to the press. When Lee refused to be pushed, they hinted that they could not help in the elections.
'I am not sorry Devan Nair lost in Farrer Park,' she told Goh, who was then involved in a tussle with pro-communist elements in the Malayan Forum. 'With Nair in legislative assembly, you would have far more trouble than you are having in the forum, and the PAP would become just an apologist for the 'freedom forces'.'
Referring to the Farrer Park defeat, she wrote: 'They had masses of socialist club boys there and masses of kids and their whole organisation collapsed on polling day. Now I hear they are waiting for Harry to be unseated on petition and then they will put Devan in Tanjong Pagar. They've got a ruddy hope.'
Two days after Lee won Tanjong Pagar in a landslide victory, his Democratic Party opponent Lam Thian challenged Lee's eligibility to sit in the assembly on the grounds that he had not lived in Singapore for the last 10 years, a Rendel requirement.
In London, Goh lobbied British MPs to sort out Lee's eligibility problem - Lee had spent three out of 10 years in Cambridge so technically he was not qualified. Eventually, the government declared that Malayan students studying abroad should be treated as eligible to stand as candidates. The petition was dropped and Lee went on to represent Tanjong Pagar for the next five decades.
All the politicking, however, was beginning to grate on Mrs Lee.
Evoking a tinge of despair, she said: 'Sometimes I would much rather Harry got unseated and stayed out of politics and lived quietly on the law. What's the use of it all?'
While gangsters might be giving PAP cause for concern in Farrer Park in the 1955 election, the sight of Chinese students campaigning aggressively for Devan Nair was raising more than eyebrows.
In her letters to Goh Keng Swee in London, Mrs Lee expressed her reservations about the 'kids' and 'brats'. She complained about how they came to see Lee at all hours for advice, demanding for one statement or another to be issued to the press. When Lee refused to be pushed, they hinted that they could not help in the elections.
'I am not sorry Devan Nair lost in Farrer Park,' she told Goh, who was then involved in a tussle with pro-communist elements in the Malayan Forum. 'With Nair in legislative assembly, you would have far more trouble than you are having in the forum, and the PAP would become just an apologist for the 'freedom forces'.'
Referring to the Farrer Park defeat, she wrote: 'They had masses of socialist club boys there and masses of kids and their whole organisation collapsed on polling day. Now I hear they are waiting for Harry to be unseated on petition and then they will put Devan in Tanjong Pagar. They've got a ruddy hope.'
Two days after Lee won Tanjong Pagar in a landslide victory, his Democratic Party opponent Lam Thian challenged Lee's eligibility to sit in the assembly on the grounds that he had not lived in Singapore for the last 10 years, a Rendel requirement.
In London, Goh lobbied British MPs to sort out Lee's eligibility problem - Lee had spent three out of 10 years in Cambridge so technically he was not qualified. Eventually, the government declared that Malayan students studying abroad should be treated as eligible to stand as candidates. The petition was dropped and Lee went on to represent Tanjong Pagar for the next five decades.
All the politicking, however, was beginning to grate on Mrs Lee.
Evoking a tinge of despair, she said: 'Sometimes I would much rather Harry got unseated and stayed out of politics and lived quietly on the law. What's the use of it all?'
Mrs Lee: People expect Lee to be cooing over baby Hsien Loong, but...(the Unions were more important) - ST Sept 6
It was a day etched in the memory of Mrs Lee Kuan Yew. She had just delivered her first child on Feb10, 1952 and her husband was visiting her in the maternity ward of Kandang Kerbau Hospital, now known as KK Women's and Children's Hospital.
As she recalled, Lee sounded elated when he told her about his first union job while cradling baby Hsien Loong. 'People would think he'd be cooing over the baby all the time instead of talking about union matters. But I think he was quite pleased at the prospect of acting for this union.'
She was referring to the Singapore Post and Telegraph Uniformed Staff Union, which was then locked in an acrimonious pay dispute with the colonial authorities. Several days earlier, union leaders Ismail Rahim and Perumal Govindasamy had visited Lee in his office and asked him to be their legal adviser.
Throughout the 13-day strike by the P and T union, as it was better known, which brought all mail services to a stop and unnerved British officialdom, Lee acted as legal adviser, official negotiator and eloquent spokesman - a high-profile role that was to catapult him into the headlines.
Basically, the dispute hinged on the difference between the government's offer of $90 and the postmen's demand of $100 on the maximum pay.
It was a difference of only $10. But when the sheer reasonableness of the demand was met by the sheer intransigence of the response, it was transformed into a cause celebre.
Despite the massive service disruptions, people supported the postmen. The press cheered. Even some of the pro-British legislative councillors sympathised with the strikers. Eventually, the government gave in to the union's demands.
The triumphant resolution of the strike projected Lee as a champion of exploited workers in the public eye and turned him into a household name. Requests for Lee to act as their legal adviser came pouring in from trade unions and associations which nursed similar grievances against the colonial masters. To the establishment, Lee became anathema.
Obviously, the lawyer was not in it for the money as the unions comprised lowly-paid workers who could barely afford to pay his legal expenses. If he really craved material rewards, he would have joined his contemporaries in servicing the big British trading houses and the Chinese banks, or doing lucrative conveyancing work.
In his memoirs The Singapore Story, Lee said that he accepted the postmen's case without asking for legal fees. In a letter to Lee, his boss John Laycock complained that the firm had 'suffered' from all his union cases and that it 'must not take on any more of these wage disputes'.
For an example of Lee's legal work, take this letter from Chan Tham Choon, general secretary of the Singapore City Council Services Union, to Lee dated March 7, 1956. It read: 'My executive council has noted that there is no fee to be charged for the advice and help you have given to the union, and I am directed to convey the union's appreciation of your kind attention in this matter.'
When Utusan Melayu journalist Samad Ismail was detained in 1951 for anti-British activities, his newspaper hired Lee as his lawyer. Living in retirement in Petaling Jaya, Kuala Lumpur in 2002, the grand old man of letters, whose controversial career straddled both sides of the Causeway, was livid at the recollection of another leading lawyer who demanded $15,000 for his case. How much did Lee charge? '$10, a token sum,' he cackled.
Former Straits Times news editor Felix Abisheganaden, who was acquainted with Lee in the 1950s and 1960s, noted that he hardly ever charged the unions for his work. 'You can never say that he was ever in his life after any kind of financial gain - never, never, never.'
If Lee was not in it for the money, then what was he in it for? To those who divined his thoughts and intentions, he was practising what he preached to his audience in his Malayan Forum speech in London: get involved in politics. And what better way to cut your political milk teeth than to take up the cudgels on behalf of underpaid workers?
Former student activist and unionist Chen Say Jame's observation was shared by many: 'Lee was influenced by the Labour Party in Britain when he was a student there. So he was naturally inclined to be pro-labour and to build his network and power base through the trade unions. Hence his willingness and eagerness to help the unions as legal adviser.'
Right from the start, noted former party chairman Toh Chin Chye, the trade union was recognised as an important source of support. 'It was the unions that provided the mass base. Lee Kuan Yew was the legal advisor, so he had a mass base.'
As Lee admitted, the free or almost-free legal service was extended to the unions when he was in Laycock and Ong. 'I was working there for a salary at that time, service free. I mean, even if I charged, it just went to the firm. Why should I charge them? John Laycock did not know. In the end I was working to get a following into the PAP! Had he known that, he would have stopped it.'
As she recalled, Lee sounded elated when he told her about his first union job while cradling baby Hsien Loong. 'People would think he'd be cooing over the baby all the time instead of talking about union matters. But I think he was quite pleased at the prospect of acting for this union.'
She was referring to the Singapore Post and Telegraph Uniformed Staff Union, which was then locked in an acrimonious pay dispute with the colonial authorities. Several days earlier, union leaders Ismail Rahim and Perumal Govindasamy had visited Lee in his office and asked him to be their legal adviser.
Throughout the 13-day strike by the P and T union, as it was better known, which brought all mail services to a stop and unnerved British officialdom, Lee acted as legal adviser, official negotiator and eloquent spokesman - a high-profile role that was to catapult him into the headlines.
Basically, the dispute hinged on the difference between the government's offer of $90 and the postmen's demand of $100 on the maximum pay.
It was a difference of only $10. But when the sheer reasonableness of the demand was met by the sheer intransigence of the response, it was transformed into a cause celebre.
Despite the massive service disruptions, people supported the postmen. The press cheered. Even some of the pro-British legislative councillors sympathised with the strikers. Eventually, the government gave in to the union's demands.
The triumphant resolution of the strike projected Lee as a champion of exploited workers in the public eye and turned him into a household name. Requests for Lee to act as their legal adviser came pouring in from trade unions and associations which nursed similar grievances against the colonial masters. To the establishment, Lee became anathema.
Obviously, the lawyer was not in it for the money as the unions comprised lowly-paid workers who could barely afford to pay his legal expenses. If he really craved material rewards, he would have joined his contemporaries in servicing the big British trading houses and the Chinese banks, or doing lucrative conveyancing work.
In his memoirs The Singapore Story, Lee said that he accepted the postmen's case without asking for legal fees. In a letter to Lee, his boss John Laycock complained that the firm had 'suffered' from all his union cases and that it 'must not take on any more of these wage disputes'.
For an example of Lee's legal work, take this letter from Chan Tham Choon, general secretary of the Singapore City Council Services Union, to Lee dated March 7, 1956. It read: 'My executive council has noted that there is no fee to be charged for the advice and help you have given to the union, and I am directed to convey the union's appreciation of your kind attention in this matter.'
When Utusan Melayu journalist Samad Ismail was detained in 1951 for anti-British activities, his newspaper hired Lee as his lawyer. Living in retirement in Petaling Jaya, Kuala Lumpur in 2002, the grand old man of letters, whose controversial career straddled both sides of the Causeway, was livid at the recollection of another leading lawyer who demanded $15,000 for his case. How much did Lee charge? '$10, a token sum,' he cackled.
Former Straits Times news editor Felix Abisheganaden, who was acquainted with Lee in the 1950s and 1960s, noted that he hardly ever charged the unions for his work. 'You can never say that he was ever in his life after any kind of financial gain - never, never, never.'
If Lee was not in it for the money, then what was he in it for? To those who divined his thoughts and intentions, he was practising what he preached to his audience in his Malayan Forum speech in London: get involved in politics. And what better way to cut your political milk teeth than to take up the cudgels on behalf of underpaid workers?
Former student activist and unionist Chen Say Jame's observation was shared by many: 'Lee was influenced by the Labour Party in Britain when he was a student there. So he was naturally inclined to be pro-labour and to build his network and power base through the trade unions. Hence his willingness and eagerness to help the unions as legal adviser.'
Right from the start, noted former party chairman Toh Chin Chye, the trade union was recognised as an important source of support. 'It was the unions that provided the mass base. Lee Kuan Yew was the legal advisor, so he had a mass base.'
As Lee admitted, the free or almost-free legal service was extended to the unions when he was in Laycock and Ong. 'I was working there for a salary at that time, service free. I mean, even if I charged, it just went to the firm. Why should I charge them? John Laycock did not know. In the end I was working to get a following into the PAP! Had he known that, he would have stopped it.'
'I was interrogated day and night for six months' - Sept 6 2009
'I was interrogated day and night for six months'
Fong Swee Suan was one of 113 people picked up under Operation Cold Store on Feb 2, 1963. The big sweep was planned to stop communists and suspected communists from undermining the proposed union between Malaya and Singapore, but the opposition saw it as a sinister move to destroy the left.
The knock on the door of a terrace house on Carlisle Road off Farrer Park came in the early hours of the morning.
As Fong Swee Suan rubbed the sleep off his eyes, he was astonished to see Chew Tong Li, his former neighbour and friend from his hometown in Johor, in a policeman's uniform toting a long gun. Memories of their basketball-playing days in Senggarang flashed through his mind.
But this was no courtesy visit. Chew was part of a team who had come to arrest the Barisan leader and radical trade unionist in an islandwide sweep dubbed Operation Cold Store on 2 February 1963.
Fong recalled: 'He stood there for a few minutes looking stunned. I told him: 'It's okay. You do your duty.' Then he said: 'Wah, it's you. How could it be you?''
Fong was driven in a car with several detainees from his home in Singapore to Kuala Lumpur. It was only when they stopped for lunch did he learn about the scale of the operation. After spending a night in the capital, he was taken to a forested area and kept in solitary confinement for six months.
Then he was packed off to another camp where he found himself in the same cell with fellow PAP founder-convenor and rural association head Chan Chiaw Thor. Fong and Chan were among the eight detainees released on 4 June 1959 as a condition for PAP's assumption of power after winning the elections.
As Fong recollected: 'It was a cement cell. Even the bed was made of cement. Except for a few books, nothing was supplied to us as they wanted to make sure we would not use a blanket or whatever to commit suicide.
'I was interrogated day and night for six months. I was asked about all my activities. They tried to find out if I had a communist connection. At night, they put an alarm clock outside my cell which rang every 15 minutes. I couldn't sleep.'
Other than Fong, the big names caught in the dragnet were Barisan CEC members Lim Chin Siong, Lim Hock Siew and Poh Soo Kai, and unionists S. Woodhull, James Puthucheary, Jamit Singh and Lim Shee Ping. In all, 113 people were rounded up, including 24 Barisan members, 21 trade union leaders, 17 Nanyang University (Nantah) students and graduates, seven members of rural associations, and five journalists.
However, all 13 Barisan legislative assemblymen and party chairman Lee Siew Choh were spared.
Planned by the Internal Security Council (ISC), the round-up was named Cold Store because it was meant to put communists and suspected communists 'away for a little while', explained a former Special Branch officer involved in the operation.
The PAP government told the public that ISC acted against the detainees for seeking to sabotage Malaysia and supporting the armed insurrection which broke out in Brunei on 8 December 1962. Led by Brunei Partai Rakyat leader A. M. Azahari, the revolt was aimed at foiling the entry of the Borneo territories into Malaysia, but it was crushed by British troops flown in from Singapore.
Barisan secretary-general Lim Chin Siong was accused of meeting Azahari in Singapore on the eve of the rebellion and conspiring to stage a simultaneous uprising in Singapore. Fong Swee Suan, however, strongly denied all these charges, saying that what Azahari and Barisan had in common was just the aim of getting rid of colonialism.
The big sweep took place against the backdrop of Confrontation or Konfrontasi launched by President Sukarno of Indonesia on 20 January 1963 to abort the proposed Malaysia union. The unofficial war, which combined military action, political subversion and infiltration of agents, was instigated by Partai Komunis Indonesia (PKI), or the Indonesian Communist Party, which was allied to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Malayan Communist Party (MCP).
Toh Chin Chye maintained that Operation Cold Store was meant to pre-empt the communist united front from mounting any violence or creating any disorder in the closing stages of the establishment of Malaysia. 'Malaya could not allow Singapore to become the Cuba of Malaysia, a safe base from which MCP could launch a political offensive against Malaysia.'
The 'clean-up' was necessary, argued S. Rajaratnam, because of Indonesia's hostility and plans by communist parties in Malaya and the Borneo territories to disrupt Malaysia.
C. V. Devan Nair remembered discussing with Lee the need for such an operation in view of growing public opinion against Confrontation and public disillusionment with Barisan for backing Sukarno. 'As PM once said, you can't afford to be sentimental when you are fighting for the life of a community. The outcome was crucial not only for ourselves but also for the ideals we were working for... We had to grow what is known as calluses.'
According to declassified British diplomatic correspondence, ISC gave the green light for the operation on 16 December 1962, but it was canned after the Malayan and Singapore governments disagreed over the list of detainees. It was revived as Operation Cold Store on 2 February 1963. Fong Swee Suan was in the list of 169 names. So were many of Lee's former comrades. Lim Chin Siong was offered safe passage out of Singapore but preferred to go into captivity.
The crackdown was greeted by cries of foul play by the opposition. Its leaders charged that it was all part of a conspiracy by the British, Malayan and Singapore authorities to demolish the left and destroy organised opposition in the proposed Malaysia. 'The Brunei armed revolt provided a good excuse to put us in,' contended Fong.
Fong Swee Suan was one of 113 people picked up under Operation Cold Store on Feb 2, 1963. The big sweep was planned to stop communists and suspected communists from undermining the proposed union between Malaya and Singapore, but the opposition saw it as a sinister move to destroy the left.
The knock on the door of a terrace house on Carlisle Road off Farrer Park came in the early hours of the morning.
As Fong Swee Suan rubbed the sleep off his eyes, he was astonished to see Chew Tong Li, his former neighbour and friend from his hometown in Johor, in a policeman's uniform toting a long gun. Memories of their basketball-playing days in Senggarang flashed through his mind.
But this was no courtesy visit. Chew was part of a team who had come to arrest the Barisan leader and radical trade unionist in an islandwide sweep dubbed Operation Cold Store on 2 February 1963.
Fong recalled: 'He stood there for a few minutes looking stunned. I told him: 'It's okay. You do your duty.' Then he said: 'Wah, it's you. How could it be you?''
Fong was driven in a car with several detainees from his home in Singapore to Kuala Lumpur. It was only when they stopped for lunch did he learn about the scale of the operation. After spending a night in the capital, he was taken to a forested area and kept in solitary confinement for six months.
Then he was packed off to another camp where he found himself in the same cell with fellow PAP founder-convenor and rural association head Chan Chiaw Thor. Fong and Chan were among the eight detainees released on 4 June 1959 as a condition for PAP's assumption of power after winning the elections.
As Fong recollected: 'It was a cement cell. Even the bed was made of cement. Except for a few books, nothing was supplied to us as they wanted to make sure we would not use a blanket or whatever to commit suicide.
'I was interrogated day and night for six months. I was asked about all my activities. They tried to find out if I had a communist connection. At night, they put an alarm clock outside my cell which rang every 15 minutes. I couldn't sleep.'
Other than Fong, the big names caught in the dragnet were Barisan CEC members Lim Chin Siong, Lim Hock Siew and Poh Soo Kai, and unionists S. Woodhull, James Puthucheary, Jamit Singh and Lim Shee Ping. In all, 113 people were rounded up, including 24 Barisan members, 21 trade union leaders, 17 Nanyang University (Nantah) students and graduates, seven members of rural associations, and five journalists.
However, all 13 Barisan legislative assemblymen and party chairman Lee Siew Choh were spared.
Planned by the Internal Security Council (ISC), the round-up was named Cold Store because it was meant to put communists and suspected communists 'away for a little while', explained a former Special Branch officer involved in the operation.
The PAP government told the public that ISC acted against the detainees for seeking to sabotage Malaysia and supporting the armed insurrection which broke out in Brunei on 8 December 1962. Led by Brunei Partai Rakyat leader A. M. Azahari, the revolt was aimed at foiling the entry of the Borneo territories into Malaysia, but it was crushed by British troops flown in from Singapore.
Barisan secretary-general Lim Chin Siong was accused of meeting Azahari in Singapore on the eve of the rebellion and conspiring to stage a simultaneous uprising in Singapore. Fong Swee Suan, however, strongly denied all these charges, saying that what Azahari and Barisan had in common was just the aim of getting rid of colonialism.
The big sweep took place against the backdrop of Confrontation or Konfrontasi launched by President Sukarno of Indonesia on 20 January 1963 to abort the proposed Malaysia union. The unofficial war, which combined military action, political subversion and infiltration of agents, was instigated by Partai Komunis Indonesia (PKI), or the Indonesian Communist Party, which was allied to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Malayan Communist Party (MCP).
Toh Chin Chye maintained that Operation Cold Store was meant to pre-empt the communist united front from mounting any violence or creating any disorder in the closing stages of the establishment of Malaysia. 'Malaya could not allow Singapore to become the Cuba of Malaysia, a safe base from which MCP could launch a political offensive against Malaysia.'
The 'clean-up' was necessary, argued S. Rajaratnam, because of Indonesia's hostility and plans by communist parties in Malaya and the Borneo territories to disrupt Malaysia.
C. V. Devan Nair remembered discussing with Lee the need for such an operation in view of growing public opinion against Confrontation and public disillusionment with Barisan for backing Sukarno. 'As PM once said, you can't afford to be sentimental when you are fighting for the life of a community. The outcome was crucial not only for ourselves but also for the ideals we were working for... We had to grow what is known as calluses.'
According to declassified British diplomatic correspondence, ISC gave the green light for the operation on 16 December 1962, but it was canned after the Malayan and Singapore governments disagreed over the list of detainees. It was revived as Operation Cold Store on 2 February 1963. Fong Swee Suan was in the list of 169 names. So were many of Lee's former comrades. Lim Chin Siong was offered safe passage out of Singapore but preferred to go into captivity.
The crackdown was greeted by cries of foul play by the opposition. Its leaders charged that it was all part of a conspiracy by the British, Malayan and Singapore authorities to demolish the left and destroy organised opposition in the proposed Malaysia. 'The Brunei armed revolt provided a good excuse to put us in,' contended Fong.
Goh Keng Swee's Legendary Thriftiness - Sept 6 2009
It was one of those sweltering days in May when the PAP candidate for Kreta Ayer and his canvassers went campaigning in the squatter slums and labyrinthine lanes of gu chia chwee ('bullock cart water' in Hokkien), the colloquial term for Chinatown.
Dripping in sweat and hoarse from making incessant pleas to residents to vote for the party, the group was relieved when Goh Keng Swee stopped by a sugar cane stall. As they huddled around the oasis expectantly, the former senior civil servant placed 10 cents, gulped down his drink and mumbled 'I have paid for my drink. If you want to have a drink, go ahead', before walking away. They were stunned.
'We looked at him, the stallholder looked at us. We thought he would be giving all of us a drink.' Chan Chee Seng, who accompanied Goh on his 1959 election rounds, was recounting yet another anecdote about the legendary thriftiness and frugality of Singapore's famed finance minister.
If that was not ample proof of Goh's parsimony, Chan found it when he rode in his car, a rattling Vauxhall which had seen better days. It was with a gasp of disbelief when he realised that part of the vehicle's floor panel had corroded to such an extent that 'you could see right through to the road'. 'You see,' he shook his head, 'Goh did not even want to pay for a rubber mat to cover the gaping hole, let alone repair it!'
S R Nathan, who worked with Goh in the defence ministry in the 1970s, said that Goh was so averse to spending that whenever he travelled overseas he would carry soap flakes to wash his underwear in the hotel bathroom. Former diplomat Maurice Baker visited Goh in his hotel room during a trip one day and saw him drying his one and only piece of underwear on the heater.
To today's Singaporeans, these penny-pinching habits would seem ridiculous and laughable but they formed the hallmark of PAP's founding fathers. Thrift was their name. Nothing was more repulsive than waste and extravagance. 'I can count the number of treats they gave me on my fingers,' Chan reminisced with a grimace. 'If a minister offered us a cup of coffee, it meant a cup. He would not offer another cup and we wouldn't dare ask.'
If you could not get a treat from them, it was even less likely you could get a loan. That Shakespearean maxim 'Neither a borrower nor a lender be'' would sum up their attitude towards money to a T. As an up-and-coming lawyer, Lee Kuan Yew would often receive an appeal for a loan and his Hamlet-like reply would be: 'I am afraid I will not be able to make you a loan. It is against my principles to lend money to a friend because I have found from my personal experience that when I gain a debtor, I lose a friend.'
On that sultry day in Kreta Ayer, Chan and fellow party members felt much disconcerted by Goh's close-fistedness. Now with the benefit of hindsight, Chan realised that it embodied the qualities that made the man such a great steward of Singapore's hard-earned finances. 'He wasn't squeezing us. He just didn't want to squander money. Every cent counted. We were lucky we had ministers like Dr Goh. That's why Singapore could save a lot of money and become one of the most affluent countries in the world,'' ruminated Chan.
Toh Chin Chye was lost in thought on a drive around the city in 2003.
Many of the gleaming towering edifices were unrecognisable to him.
What on earth was that, he asked pointing suddenly to the spiky durian-shaped structure on Marina Bay. As the car cruised around the Rochor Road area where he used to be member of parliament, the sight of the teeming crowds at Bugis Village snapped him out of his reverie. 'For what you have now, you've got to thank Dr Goh,' he blurted out.
Dripping in sweat and hoarse from making incessant pleas to residents to vote for the party, the group was relieved when Goh Keng Swee stopped by a sugar cane stall. As they huddled around the oasis expectantly, the former senior civil servant placed 10 cents, gulped down his drink and mumbled 'I have paid for my drink. If you want to have a drink, go ahead', before walking away. They were stunned.
'We looked at him, the stallholder looked at us. We thought he would be giving all of us a drink.' Chan Chee Seng, who accompanied Goh on his 1959 election rounds, was recounting yet another anecdote about the legendary thriftiness and frugality of Singapore's famed finance minister.
If that was not ample proof of Goh's parsimony, Chan found it when he rode in his car, a rattling Vauxhall which had seen better days. It was with a gasp of disbelief when he realised that part of the vehicle's floor panel had corroded to such an extent that 'you could see right through to the road'. 'You see,' he shook his head, 'Goh did not even want to pay for a rubber mat to cover the gaping hole, let alone repair it!'
S R Nathan, who worked with Goh in the defence ministry in the 1970s, said that Goh was so averse to spending that whenever he travelled overseas he would carry soap flakes to wash his underwear in the hotel bathroom. Former diplomat Maurice Baker visited Goh in his hotel room during a trip one day and saw him drying his one and only piece of underwear on the heater.
To today's Singaporeans, these penny-pinching habits would seem ridiculous and laughable but they formed the hallmark of PAP's founding fathers. Thrift was their name. Nothing was more repulsive than waste and extravagance. 'I can count the number of treats they gave me on my fingers,' Chan reminisced with a grimace. 'If a minister offered us a cup of coffee, it meant a cup. He would not offer another cup and we wouldn't dare ask.'
If you could not get a treat from them, it was even less likely you could get a loan. That Shakespearean maxim 'Neither a borrower nor a lender be'' would sum up their attitude towards money to a T. As an up-and-coming lawyer, Lee Kuan Yew would often receive an appeal for a loan and his Hamlet-like reply would be: 'I am afraid I will not be able to make you a loan. It is against my principles to lend money to a friend because I have found from my personal experience that when I gain a debtor, I lose a friend.'
On that sultry day in Kreta Ayer, Chan and fellow party members felt much disconcerted by Goh's close-fistedness. Now with the benefit of hindsight, Chan realised that it embodied the qualities that made the man such a great steward of Singapore's hard-earned finances. 'He wasn't squeezing us. He just didn't want to squander money. Every cent counted. We were lucky we had ministers like Dr Goh. That's why Singapore could save a lot of money and become one of the most affluent countries in the world,'' ruminated Chan.
Toh Chin Chye was lost in thought on a drive around the city in 2003.
Many of the gleaming towering edifices were unrecognisable to him.
What on earth was that, he asked pointing suddenly to the spiky durian-shaped structure on Marina Bay. As the car cruised around the Rochor Road area where he used to be member of parliament, the sight of the teeming crowds at Bugis Village snapped him out of his reverie. 'For what you have now, you've got to thank Dr Goh,' he blurted out.
On the brink of collapse - ST Sept 6 2009
On the brink of collapse
After losing two by-elections in Hong Lim and Anson in 1961, a weakened PAP was challenged by its dissident legislative assemblymen who opposed the proposed merger with Malaya. The Lee government teetered on the brink of collapse as its 43-8 majority in June 1959 was whittled down to 26-25 by July 1961.
Lee Kuan Yew decided that it was time to draw a line in the sand. What better way to do it than to move a motion of confidence in the legislative assembly - every PAP member would be compelled to stand up and be counted.
He knew that at least eight dissidents had turned against him during the Anson campaign.
It was a dangerous gamble to take in the 51-seat chamber. If 26 assemblymen voted against the motion, his government would fall leading to the possible formation of a leftist government or precipitating a general election in which the PAP was more than likely to lose in the wake of the double by-election fiascos.
As Low Por Tuck recalled, the prime minister convened a City Hall meeting and called on all PAP assemblymen to support merger and sign a form pledging full confidence in him. Low expressed reservations saying that 'it was like signing a blank cheque to support merger' and requested a postponement for the signing. The next day, he received a notice for the motion of confidence sitting.
Ong Chang Sam said that some assemblymen appealed to Lee to change his policies in the light of the by-election failures and loss of popular support for the party. They expressed concerns that the merger could be used against the leftists but Lee turned them down and so they did not sign the forms.
Meanwhile, the leftists were zealously soliciting support too. After being rebuffed by the CEC in their bid to stage a conference of all 51 party branches to challenge Lee, they held a flurry of meetings to cajole and coax their uncommitted colleagues to line up with them.
Buang Omar Junid, the then-member for Kallang, was roped into a City Hall meeting held by Lee Siew Choh and attended by a dozen assemblymen. He listened to Wong Soon Fong, Lin You Eng, Ong Chang Sam and Chan Sun Wing declaring that they no longer believed in Lee's leadership and urging the group to unite and leave the PAP.
'Everyone was asked in turn and each indicated his support...When I was asked to speak, I said I wanted to find out if what was said was right or not,' recounted Buang. Later he told Lee Siew Choh he would not join them as he had full confidence in the prime minister.
Lee Khoon Choy referred to another City Hall meeting held by Chan Sun Wing among the parliamentary secretaries. They talked about taking over the Cabinet following Lee's threat to quit as prime minister. At one point, he said, Sheng Nam Chin turned to him and uttered: 'You be the prime minister.'
K C, as he was better known, remembered that he almost burst into laughter when they discussed what portfolios they should take over - Chan Sun Wing as minister for education, Sheng Nam Chin as minister for health and Low Por Tuck as minister for finance. When he realised they were using him against Lee, he left the meeting. Chan Sun Wing and Sheng Nam Ching had since denied that there was ever such a meeting. Sheng retorted: 'Who am I to offer him the post of prime minister?'
Yaacob Mohamed, one of the nine parliamentary secretaries then, cited a similar bid by leftists to topple Lee and seize power. His recollection was that Siew Choh would be prime minister with Lee Khoon Choy as deputy prime minister and Sheng Nam Chin as health minister. He said that he was offered a ministerial post if he were to join them.
In former British journalist Dennis Bloodworth's account, Lee had collected 24 signed pledges of support when he entered the house to move his motion of confidence. The whip was lifted to allow a free vote. The debate lasted a record-breaking 13 hours and 21 minutes, having started on 20 July at 2.34pm and ending the next day at 3.55am.
The jam-packed public gallery was treated to an unprecedented spectacle which saw PAP assemblymen lunging at one another's jugular with acidic barbs and stinging metaphors. Lim Yew Hock and his Singapore People's Alliance (SPA) colleagues gloated over the intra-party fighting. One UMNO representative derided PAP as a gadoh-gadoh ('quarrelling' in Malay) party.
They mocked Lee for bringing a party dispute into a public chamber at taxpayers' expense. The PAP leftists joined in the condemnation arguing that the motion should be thrashed out in the party rather than in the assembly. But Lee's key contention was that the ruling party must know where it stood as it prepared for merger with Malaya and settle the conditions before presenting it to the people.
As the time to call for a division or to take a vote neared, Lee made a headcount and found that he was short of one vote to secure a majority. All attention was focused on PAP member for Siglap Sahorah binte Ahmat, a plump Malay housewife who was then laid up in hospital with a big question mark over her party allegiance.
Chan Chee Seng volunteered to fetch her from hospital to vote for the motion. 'At first PM dismissed my suggestion saying I would be wasting my time as the leftists had already won her over. But Toh Chin Chye told Lee to let me give it a try. And so off I went.'
At Singapore General Hospital, Chan found Sahorah in tears.
Complaining that no one in PAP cared about her, she said she had given her word to the leftists. Chan appealed to her not to switch sides saying that if she did not vote for her party, the PAP government would collapse.
She relented and Chan arranged for the hospital to send her to the assembly house in an ambulance. 'Sahorah was carried up to the chamber. We walked in, the door closed and the bell rang. She voted just in time. I flashed a V sign to a smiling Lee,' said Chan.
A July 22 report in Nanyang Siang Pau said that Sahorah was rushed by ambulance to the chamber to cast her decisive vote. It noted that she was helped to her seat by Chan Choy Siong and Ismail Rahim at 3.25am when Lee was delivering his closing speech.
When the motion of confidence was finally put to a vote, the result revealed a fragmented house: 27 ayes, 8 nays and 16 abstentions. PAP clinched 26 votes from its own assemblymen plus one more vote from independent member C H Koh. Workers Party's David Marshall and all SPA members voted against the motion. In all, 13 dissident PAP assemblymen abstained, joined by their former colleagues in the United People's Party (UPP) - Ong Eng Guan, Ng Teng Kian and S V Lingam.
Why did they abstain? Ong Chang Sam explained that they could not vote against the motion as they were still PAP members and were hoping that the government could be pressurised into changing its policy on merger. Low Por Tuck said that they had no intention of throwing out the PAP government.
A new opponent
Ploughing through the speeches in the Hansard, or verbatim record of the marathon sitting, you could sense the poignancy of friendships lost and relationships severed.
For The Big Split was not just a political episode about the break-up of a ruling party, it was an all-too-human story about people caught up in a vortex of emotions as they turned against one another.
You could discern the note of sentimentality in Lee's voice when he said that it was with sadness that he watched the resolve of his friends and comrades melting in the heat of the battle. They were not crooks and rogues, he lamented, but they lacked the sternness of purpose in the face of strong persuasion and silent intimidation.
Referring to S T Bani as a friend twice, Lee recounted how they fought together to stop the Singapore Traction Company Employees' Union (STCEU) from falling under communist domination. Goh Keng Swee spoke movingly of his friendship with Lee Siew Choh, how it began over the chessboard and lasted through the years.
For Lee, perhaps 'the most unkindest cut of all' came from his own parliamentary secretary, Chan Sun Wing, whom he had trusted as his aide and friend. He was shocked when he learnt from Special Branch that Chan was plotting against him in the Canning Rise quarters. Ditto for Goh when he found that his own parliamentary secretary, Low Por Tuck, whom he liked immensely, had also switched sides.
The PAP leaders also found that their faith in supposedly non-communist professionals was sadly misplaced. Medical practitioners Lee Siew Choh and Sheng Nam Chin had no qualms about crossing to the leftist camp and leading the charge against them.
To Lee, it was as clear as daylight that if you did not vote for his motion, you were against it. The 13 PAP assemblymen who abstained were sacked from the party. They comprised the five parliamentary secretaries - Lee Siew Choh, Sheng Nam Chin, Chan Sun Wing, Leong Keng Seng and Low Por Tuck, and backbenchers Wong Soon Fong, Ong Chang Sam, Tee Kim Leng, Lin You Eng, Tan Cheng Tong, Teo Hock Guan, S T Bani and Fung Yin Ching. The three non-elected political secretaries, Lim Chin Siong, Fong Swee Suan and S Woodhull, were also given the boot.
On the day of their expulsion, Low Por Tuck recalled, the assemblymen gathered at - where else? - the house on the hill to ponder their next move. They decided to form a new party called Barisan Sosialis ('Socialist Front' in Malay) to provide an alternative government for Singapore.
Formed on 13 August 1961 and registered on 17 September 1962, it became the biggest opposition party in the house. Lee Siew Choh was elected chairman, Woodhull vice-chairman, Lim Chin Siong secretary-general, Poh Soo Kai assistant secretary-general and Low Por Tuck treasurer. Its CEC members included Lim Hock Siew, Wong Soon Fong, Fong Swee Suan, Chan Sun Wing, Ong Chang Sam, S T Bani, T T Rajah and the Puthucheary brothers.
A five-pointed red star set in a blue circle against a white background was adopted as the Barisan logo. Its uncanny resemblance to the star on communist China's flag discomfited James Puthucheary who lobbied for a change to a four-pointed or three-pointed star without success.
But what really shook PAP to its very foundations was the mass defections of its branches and members. Some 35 out of 51 branches crossed over to Barisan together with 19 out of 23 branch secretaries. To Lee's dismay, he learnt that his Tanjong Pagar branch had been pulled like a rug from under his feet. His branch secretary, Chok Kor Thong, turned out to be the ringleader involved in mobilising all 51 PAP branches against the leadership.
When Toh went to his Rochor branch, he found that his branch secretary had vanished. K C said that his Bukit Panjang branch 'just disappeared' when more than half of his committee members, including his chairman and secretary, joined the exodus.
Many branches were literally stripped bare when their officials scooted. Desks, chairs, teacups, kettles, clocks, cupboards, fans and sewing machines were carted away only to re-appear at the Barisan branches. Barisan signboards were displayed brazenly at some PAP branches.
Giving their side of the story, Ong Chang Sam said that all the committee members of his Chua Chu Kang branch decided to join Barisan after he warned them that the government would use merger against the leftists. Sheng Nam Chin said that he would have been isolated if he had not allowed his Nee Soon branch to defect.
For PAP, the loss of 35 branches was just the first staggering blow. Two more, aimed at delivering the knockout punch, were to come.
To reach out to the people, the government had set up the People's Association (PA) in 1960 with its network of community centres. The Works Brigade (WB) was formed to train unemployed youths in bricklaying, farming, water pipe repairs and other vocational skills.
But unknown to the party leaders, communist agents had burrowed deeply into both organisations. A stark admission of communist infiltration came from a former MCP member who said that the underground gave him the signal to join PA.
Pro-Barisan PA employees mounted a 10-month strike from September 1961. Joining them were many community centre leaders as well as PA staff members. And when the strikers realised they could no longer return to PA, he said, they resorted to political agitation over merger against the government.
Over at the WB, some 2,000 unruly members staged a mutiny when they defied instructions and refused to work. The Cabinet decided on an overwhelming display of force to overawe the strikers. It worked. When soldiers surrounded the camp with fixed bayonets, the youngsters capitulated.
Behind the uprising in the PAP branches and PA was none other than the prime minister's parliamentary secretary, Chan Sun Wing. Ong Pang Boon said that Chan was able to convince Lee to appoint many of the defecting PAP organising secretaries despite their security records. As Chan was also in charge of staff recruitment for PA, he enlisted many of the community centre leaders into his camp.
As for the instigator of the Works Brigade incident, all fingers pointed at Wong Soon Fong, who was attached to the labour ministry as 'chief of staff' of the uniformed group. Goh believed that Chan and Wong were deliberately planted in the government by MCP cadre Fang Chuang Pi to outmanoeuvre Lee.
Chan Chee Seng and Wong were colleagues in the brigade when hostilities broke out. The tension spilled over into their Canning Rise quarters. When they went to bed in the same room, they turned away from each other without wishing one another good night.
Teetering on the brink
Two by-election defeats. Mass defections from the party. People's Association and Works Brigade under siege. Labour movement led by leftists. Rural, youth and student organisations captured by pro-communists. Public opinion swinging towards the opposing camp.
PAP faced its darkest hour in history as it teetered on the brink of collapse. From 43 seats in the 51-seat assembly in June 1959, its massive majority had dwindled to a wafer-thin 26-25 by July 1961 when the 13 PAP rebels crossed the floor.
Like a punch-drunk boxer, the party was reeling on the ropes. Lim Kim San recalled a despondent Goh saying that there were times when they thought of calling it quits and asking Lim Chin Siong to take over.
In a despatch to London dated 17 July 1961, Selkirk referred to a dinner with Lee and Goh and recorded: 'I found them pretty broken men, extremely jumpy and uncertain of their political future.'
Lee told him that he could rely on only 23 certain votes in the assembly and that he could hold on for another three months before the communists took over. 'He now has considerable doubts whether Singapore can be governed on the basis of one man, one vote, and that the government of Singapore must now pass to the communists, the British or the Federation of Malaya,' wrote the UK commissioner.
At a Special Branch briefing, its director Richard Corridon commented that what took place in the weeks after The Big Split was an 'exact repetition of what happened under Lim Yew Hock with unions in full cry and rapid rebuilding of open front organisations'. He warned that PAP was no match for Lim Chin Siong and the Middle Road unions.
As the merger debate gathered momentum, each sitting lent itself to high drama and cliffhanger suspense. The opposition smelled blood and called for a division at every opportunity. What grated Lee and company even more was that they had to depend on the support of their legislative enemies in SPA to fend off the advances of their former comrades.
One more turn of the screw came during a crucial debate on the Malaysia plan on 3 July 1962. Ho Puay Choo resigned from the party to be an independent saying that she did not agree with the terms for merger.
When she joined Barisan on 11 August 1962, the pendulum swung to a perilous 25-26. The PAP had lost its majority.
As luck would have it, S V Lingam resigned from UPP and rejoined PAP, and it was back to 26-25. Phew!
Fate then intervened to give the power equation another hair-raising twist. On 21 August 1962, Ahmad Ibrahim, the minister for labour, died of liver disease at the age of 35 and the house was deadlocked at 25-25.
As the prospect of another by-election loomed - with talk of Lim Chin Siong standing - the spectre of Hong Lim and Anson rose to haunt PAP all over again.
After losing two by-elections in Hong Lim and Anson in 1961, a weakened PAP was challenged by its dissident legislative assemblymen who opposed the proposed merger with Malaya. The Lee government teetered on the brink of collapse as its 43-8 majority in June 1959 was whittled down to 26-25 by July 1961.
Lee Kuan Yew decided that it was time to draw a line in the sand. What better way to do it than to move a motion of confidence in the legislative assembly - every PAP member would be compelled to stand up and be counted.
He knew that at least eight dissidents had turned against him during the Anson campaign.
It was a dangerous gamble to take in the 51-seat chamber. If 26 assemblymen voted against the motion, his government would fall leading to the possible formation of a leftist government or precipitating a general election in which the PAP was more than likely to lose in the wake of the double by-election fiascos.
As Low Por Tuck recalled, the prime minister convened a City Hall meeting and called on all PAP assemblymen to support merger and sign a form pledging full confidence in him. Low expressed reservations saying that 'it was like signing a blank cheque to support merger' and requested a postponement for the signing. The next day, he received a notice for the motion of confidence sitting.
Ong Chang Sam said that some assemblymen appealed to Lee to change his policies in the light of the by-election failures and loss of popular support for the party. They expressed concerns that the merger could be used against the leftists but Lee turned them down and so they did not sign the forms.
Meanwhile, the leftists were zealously soliciting support too. After being rebuffed by the CEC in their bid to stage a conference of all 51 party branches to challenge Lee, they held a flurry of meetings to cajole and coax their uncommitted colleagues to line up with them.
Buang Omar Junid, the then-member for Kallang, was roped into a City Hall meeting held by Lee Siew Choh and attended by a dozen assemblymen. He listened to Wong Soon Fong, Lin You Eng, Ong Chang Sam and Chan Sun Wing declaring that they no longer believed in Lee's leadership and urging the group to unite and leave the PAP.
'Everyone was asked in turn and each indicated his support...When I was asked to speak, I said I wanted to find out if what was said was right or not,' recounted Buang. Later he told Lee Siew Choh he would not join them as he had full confidence in the prime minister.
Lee Khoon Choy referred to another City Hall meeting held by Chan Sun Wing among the parliamentary secretaries. They talked about taking over the Cabinet following Lee's threat to quit as prime minister. At one point, he said, Sheng Nam Chin turned to him and uttered: 'You be the prime minister.'
K C, as he was better known, remembered that he almost burst into laughter when they discussed what portfolios they should take over - Chan Sun Wing as minister for education, Sheng Nam Chin as minister for health and Low Por Tuck as minister for finance. When he realised they were using him against Lee, he left the meeting. Chan Sun Wing and Sheng Nam Ching had since denied that there was ever such a meeting. Sheng retorted: 'Who am I to offer him the post of prime minister?'
Yaacob Mohamed, one of the nine parliamentary secretaries then, cited a similar bid by leftists to topple Lee and seize power. His recollection was that Siew Choh would be prime minister with Lee Khoon Choy as deputy prime minister and Sheng Nam Chin as health minister. He said that he was offered a ministerial post if he were to join them.
In former British journalist Dennis Bloodworth's account, Lee had collected 24 signed pledges of support when he entered the house to move his motion of confidence. The whip was lifted to allow a free vote. The debate lasted a record-breaking 13 hours and 21 minutes, having started on 20 July at 2.34pm and ending the next day at 3.55am.
The jam-packed public gallery was treated to an unprecedented spectacle which saw PAP assemblymen lunging at one another's jugular with acidic barbs and stinging metaphors. Lim Yew Hock and his Singapore People's Alliance (SPA) colleagues gloated over the intra-party fighting. One UMNO representative derided PAP as a gadoh-gadoh ('quarrelling' in Malay) party.
They mocked Lee for bringing a party dispute into a public chamber at taxpayers' expense. The PAP leftists joined in the condemnation arguing that the motion should be thrashed out in the party rather than in the assembly. But Lee's key contention was that the ruling party must know where it stood as it prepared for merger with Malaya and settle the conditions before presenting it to the people.
As the time to call for a division or to take a vote neared, Lee made a headcount and found that he was short of one vote to secure a majority. All attention was focused on PAP member for Siglap Sahorah binte Ahmat, a plump Malay housewife who was then laid up in hospital with a big question mark over her party allegiance.
Chan Chee Seng volunteered to fetch her from hospital to vote for the motion. 'At first PM dismissed my suggestion saying I would be wasting my time as the leftists had already won her over. But Toh Chin Chye told Lee to let me give it a try. And so off I went.'
At Singapore General Hospital, Chan found Sahorah in tears.
Complaining that no one in PAP cared about her, she said she had given her word to the leftists. Chan appealed to her not to switch sides saying that if she did not vote for her party, the PAP government would collapse.
She relented and Chan arranged for the hospital to send her to the assembly house in an ambulance. 'Sahorah was carried up to the chamber. We walked in, the door closed and the bell rang. She voted just in time. I flashed a V sign to a smiling Lee,' said Chan.
A July 22 report in Nanyang Siang Pau said that Sahorah was rushed by ambulance to the chamber to cast her decisive vote. It noted that she was helped to her seat by Chan Choy Siong and Ismail Rahim at 3.25am when Lee was delivering his closing speech.
When the motion of confidence was finally put to a vote, the result revealed a fragmented house: 27 ayes, 8 nays and 16 abstentions. PAP clinched 26 votes from its own assemblymen plus one more vote from independent member C H Koh. Workers Party's David Marshall and all SPA members voted against the motion. In all, 13 dissident PAP assemblymen abstained, joined by their former colleagues in the United People's Party (UPP) - Ong Eng Guan, Ng Teng Kian and S V Lingam.
Why did they abstain? Ong Chang Sam explained that they could not vote against the motion as they were still PAP members and were hoping that the government could be pressurised into changing its policy on merger. Low Por Tuck said that they had no intention of throwing out the PAP government.
A new opponent
Ploughing through the speeches in the Hansard, or verbatim record of the marathon sitting, you could sense the poignancy of friendships lost and relationships severed.
For The Big Split was not just a political episode about the break-up of a ruling party, it was an all-too-human story about people caught up in a vortex of emotions as they turned against one another.
You could discern the note of sentimentality in Lee's voice when he said that it was with sadness that he watched the resolve of his friends and comrades melting in the heat of the battle. They were not crooks and rogues, he lamented, but they lacked the sternness of purpose in the face of strong persuasion and silent intimidation.
Referring to S T Bani as a friend twice, Lee recounted how they fought together to stop the Singapore Traction Company Employees' Union (STCEU) from falling under communist domination. Goh Keng Swee spoke movingly of his friendship with Lee Siew Choh, how it began over the chessboard and lasted through the years.
For Lee, perhaps 'the most unkindest cut of all' came from his own parliamentary secretary, Chan Sun Wing, whom he had trusted as his aide and friend. He was shocked when he learnt from Special Branch that Chan was plotting against him in the Canning Rise quarters. Ditto for Goh when he found that his own parliamentary secretary, Low Por Tuck, whom he liked immensely, had also switched sides.
The PAP leaders also found that their faith in supposedly non-communist professionals was sadly misplaced. Medical practitioners Lee Siew Choh and Sheng Nam Chin had no qualms about crossing to the leftist camp and leading the charge against them.
To Lee, it was as clear as daylight that if you did not vote for his motion, you were against it. The 13 PAP assemblymen who abstained were sacked from the party. They comprised the five parliamentary secretaries - Lee Siew Choh, Sheng Nam Chin, Chan Sun Wing, Leong Keng Seng and Low Por Tuck, and backbenchers Wong Soon Fong, Ong Chang Sam, Tee Kim Leng, Lin You Eng, Tan Cheng Tong, Teo Hock Guan, S T Bani and Fung Yin Ching. The three non-elected political secretaries, Lim Chin Siong, Fong Swee Suan and S Woodhull, were also given the boot.
On the day of their expulsion, Low Por Tuck recalled, the assemblymen gathered at - where else? - the house on the hill to ponder their next move. They decided to form a new party called Barisan Sosialis ('Socialist Front' in Malay) to provide an alternative government for Singapore.
Formed on 13 August 1961 and registered on 17 September 1962, it became the biggest opposition party in the house. Lee Siew Choh was elected chairman, Woodhull vice-chairman, Lim Chin Siong secretary-general, Poh Soo Kai assistant secretary-general and Low Por Tuck treasurer. Its CEC members included Lim Hock Siew, Wong Soon Fong, Fong Swee Suan, Chan Sun Wing, Ong Chang Sam, S T Bani, T T Rajah and the Puthucheary brothers.
A five-pointed red star set in a blue circle against a white background was adopted as the Barisan logo. Its uncanny resemblance to the star on communist China's flag discomfited James Puthucheary who lobbied for a change to a four-pointed or three-pointed star without success.
But what really shook PAP to its very foundations was the mass defections of its branches and members. Some 35 out of 51 branches crossed over to Barisan together with 19 out of 23 branch secretaries. To Lee's dismay, he learnt that his Tanjong Pagar branch had been pulled like a rug from under his feet. His branch secretary, Chok Kor Thong, turned out to be the ringleader involved in mobilising all 51 PAP branches against the leadership.
When Toh went to his Rochor branch, he found that his branch secretary had vanished. K C said that his Bukit Panjang branch 'just disappeared' when more than half of his committee members, including his chairman and secretary, joined the exodus.
Many branches were literally stripped bare when their officials scooted. Desks, chairs, teacups, kettles, clocks, cupboards, fans and sewing machines were carted away only to re-appear at the Barisan branches. Barisan signboards were displayed brazenly at some PAP branches.
Giving their side of the story, Ong Chang Sam said that all the committee members of his Chua Chu Kang branch decided to join Barisan after he warned them that the government would use merger against the leftists. Sheng Nam Chin said that he would have been isolated if he had not allowed his Nee Soon branch to defect.
For PAP, the loss of 35 branches was just the first staggering blow. Two more, aimed at delivering the knockout punch, were to come.
To reach out to the people, the government had set up the People's Association (PA) in 1960 with its network of community centres. The Works Brigade (WB) was formed to train unemployed youths in bricklaying, farming, water pipe repairs and other vocational skills.
But unknown to the party leaders, communist agents had burrowed deeply into both organisations. A stark admission of communist infiltration came from a former MCP member who said that the underground gave him the signal to join PA.
Pro-Barisan PA employees mounted a 10-month strike from September 1961. Joining them were many community centre leaders as well as PA staff members. And when the strikers realised they could no longer return to PA, he said, they resorted to political agitation over merger against the government.
Over at the WB, some 2,000 unruly members staged a mutiny when they defied instructions and refused to work. The Cabinet decided on an overwhelming display of force to overawe the strikers. It worked. When soldiers surrounded the camp with fixed bayonets, the youngsters capitulated.
Behind the uprising in the PAP branches and PA was none other than the prime minister's parliamentary secretary, Chan Sun Wing. Ong Pang Boon said that Chan was able to convince Lee to appoint many of the defecting PAP organising secretaries despite their security records. As Chan was also in charge of staff recruitment for PA, he enlisted many of the community centre leaders into his camp.
As for the instigator of the Works Brigade incident, all fingers pointed at Wong Soon Fong, who was attached to the labour ministry as 'chief of staff' of the uniformed group. Goh believed that Chan and Wong were deliberately planted in the government by MCP cadre Fang Chuang Pi to outmanoeuvre Lee.
Chan Chee Seng and Wong were colleagues in the brigade when hostilities broke out. The tension spilled over into their Canning Rise quarters. When they went to bed in the same room, they turned away from each other without wishing one another good night.
Teetering on the brink
Two by-election defeats. Mass defections from the party. People's Association and Works Brigade under siege. Labour movement led by leftists. Rural, youth and student organisations captured by pro-communists. Public opinion swinging towards the opposing camp.
PAP faced its darkest hour in history as it teetered on the brink of collapse. From 43 seats in the 51-seat assembly in June 1959, its massive majority had dwindled to a wafer-thin 26-25 by July 1961 when the 13 PAP rebels crossed the floor.
Like a punch-drunk boxer, the party was reeling on the ropes. Lim Kim San recalled a despondent Goh saying that there were times when they thought of calling it quits and asking Lim Chin Siong to take over.
In a despatch to London dated 17 July 1961, Selkirk referred to a dinner with Lee and Goh and recorded: 'I found them pretty broken men, extremely jumpy and uncertain of their political future.'
Lee told him that he could rely on only 23 certain votes in the assembly and that he could hold on for another three months before the communists took over. 'He now has considerable doubts whether Singapore can be governed on the basis of one man, one vote, and that the government of Singapore must now pass to the communists, the British or the Federation of Malaya,' wrote the UK commissioner.
At a Special Branch briefing, its director Richard Corridon commented that what took place in the weeks after The Big Split was an 'exact repetition of what happened under Lim Yew Hock with unions in full cry and rapid rebuilding of open front organisations'. He warned that PAP was no match for Lim Chin Siong and the Middle Road unions.
As the merger debate gathered momentum, each sitting lent itself to high drama and cliffhanger suspense. The opposition smelled blood and called for a division at every opportunity. What grated Lee and company even more was that they had to depend on the support of their legislative enemies in SPA to fend off the advances of their former comrades.
One more turn of the screw came during a crucial debate on the Malaysia plan on 3 July 1962. Ho Puay Choo resigned from the party to be an independent saying that she did not agree with the terms for merger.
When she joined Barisan on 11 August 1962, the pendulum swung to a perilous 25-26. The PAP had lost its majority.
As luck would have it, S V Lingam resigned from UPP and rejoined PAP, and it was back to 26-25. Phew!
Fate then intervened to give the power equation another hair-raising twist. On 21 August 1962, Ahmad Ibrahim, the minister for labour, died of liver disease at the age of 35 and the house was deadlocked at 25-25.
As the prospect of another by-election loomed - with talk of Lim Chin Siong standing - the spectre of Hong Lim and Anson rose to haunt PAP all over again.
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